Into The Dark
by Alba aka Luthien Miriel
Summary: SECOND VERSION OF 'TRUE LOVE NEVER DIES'. While the world is knocked about by a cruel and deadly war, Draco and Hermione meet again, and fall in love. Their common path will be blocked by ancient grudge, ideologies, and hatred. I suck at summaries. READ A


Into The Dark

By Alba

Chapter 1 – Arxis

I follow the night  
Can't stand the light

Is there no one by my side?

Will you be my guide?  
  


**London****, December 23rd – ****20:30******

_When __you've reached all that life can reasonably give you, what more can you demand?_

Hermione Potter shivered and hid her nose behind her scarf while she valiantly took one more step. It was night, it was cold, and she was tired, hungry and freezing. Dark buildings towered high above her, casting long shadows. A biting cold wind blew, and no stars shone in the sky; only the pale, lifeless moon. Snow fell in big, round flakes, melting on her hair and her clothes. In front of her, Harry's, Ron's and Ginny's dark silhouettes advanced in the night, pale and ghastly in the moonlight. Hermione sped up to catch up with them and looked at her husband. His expression was unreadable, like so often in these last years when he was confronted to the dark side. He had never freed himself of Voldemort's curse, always feared him and was tempted by him, although he had always heroically resisted. But Hermione knew that one day, they would face each other, Harry and Voldemort, and then, he would have to make his choice. Hermione did not doubt of Harry's choice. Although maybe she was not madly in love with him, like she had always wanted to be with her husband, she trusted him more than anyone else.

_Can't they even let us in peace the day before Christmas? _She thought bitterly, thinking of how much better she would nurse her pessimism at home, drinking hot chocolate and reading a book in her cozy living room.

Hermione sighed and loosened her ponytail so that her brown curls warmed her ears. _I have all I want. I cannot demand more,_ she thought. She had never been capricious, so why was she so often discontent with her fate? How many witches would have died to be like her, skilled, famous, and married to the famous Harry Potter? How many would have been glad to work for the Magical World, even on Christmas?

But it was not what _she_ had wanted. Hermione Granger, the teenager, the bookworm from the times before war had turned her world upside down, the idealistic girl, had wanted a life like in the books; adventurous and full of romance. She had always expected that one day; the man of her life would come out of the shadows. But he had never come, and she had married Harry Potter and had never been especially discontent before this day when Dumbledore had called them and ordered them to go to the headquarters.

Plus, she had had no time to buy presents, because she had been working all the time for a cause she was beginning to lose faith in. War. Even the most optimistic wizards were beginning to murmur that the war would be long, painful, and deadly. And the most pessimistic foresaw that it was already lost, briefly after it had begun.

"There it is." Ginny whispered, as if she was frightened of troubling the solemn silence of the nocturnal streets.

Since the Ministry of Magic had been burned last year and Fudge, followed by his successor Green, had dismissed, the headquarters had been set in a place that one could only reach apparating. It was almost completely safe, and some pretended that it was better than the Ministry. Since the declaration of war between Light and Darkness, the Aurors had had to assemble forces; which was why more and more came from everywhere in the world to join in London, where either the end of the Magical World or Voldemort's downfall would take place.

Needless to say that far more Death Eaters were assembling in London. The Aurors could not exactly calculate how many of them were rising to fight, but they knew they were out-numbered, though hopefully not yet out-smarted.

Hermione shivered again, and wrapped her coat tightly around her body. She looked up at the silent and dark building that Ginny Weasley was pointing. From outside, it seemed to have fallen into decay long ago. It looked half-ruined, with all the windows broken and graffiti drawn on the walls. But Hermione knew better. She knew that the building was not what it looked like. For that was Dumbledore's Aurors' new headquarters.

Hermione, Harry, Ron and Ginny apparated because it was the only way to get inside. And not even every wizard could apparate there, which was why it was so safe. Dean Thomas and Fred and George Weasley had made up a complicate magic safety system that did not let anyone who was not an Auror (or Dumbledore in person) enter. 

The walls were bare and white, because no one had had time to make the building look more like "home". But the only room of the Aurors' headquarter, which was as big as a football field, was full of desks, spyglasses, crystal balls, papers, brooms and many other things, so that no one thought the place looked empty. Yet…

"Hey," said Ron. "Why isn't there anyone?"

Seven Aurors were supposed to stand guard during the night. Harry and his group had come because Seamus Finnigan had discovered that one of the diaries they kept was bewitched and that everything that was written on it automatically passed to another one; which he had found in a Death Eaters' quarters. Therefore, Dumbledore had sent the Potters and the youngest Weasleys to check the place out in the middle of the night. But seven people were supposed to wait for them in the headquarters.

"Hello? Is there anyone?" Harry called.

No answer came.

"Something's wrong." Ron said.

The headquarters were continually lit up by a huge lamp that hung from the ceiling, and so Ginny immediately saw what made her scream.

"Oh, Merlin!" she said, running towards a corner.

Ron and the others quickly followed, and Hermione's heart skipped a beat when she saw what had frightened her friend. 

In a corner of the huge room, seven bodies were neatly aligned with their faces on the ground. Their own quills were planted in the napes of their necks, which had broken their spines at the most delicate point. Hermione's eyes widened as she knelt down and felt their pulse with her trembling, numbed fingers.

"They're dead." She whispered hoarsely.

Harry's expression did not change a bit, but he said softly:

"He has come far."

He gave the surroundings a quick glance, but, except for the seven cadavers, there was no sign of a plundering. Obviously, whoever had entered the headquarters had done it only to frighten them and to prove his might. Without any other word, Harry simply disappeared, followed by Ginny and Ron. Hermione stayed behind a moment, shaken by the murders. If Voldemort had the strength to break through the Weasley twins' safety system and irrupt into the Aurors' headquarters, which left little hope for the Light Side to win the war. Hermione looked out of the windows, which offered a beautiful sight of a waterfall in the sunset. It depressed her only more. Then her glance fell on the white wall behind the seven corpses. There was a note pinned on it.

Frowning, she tore it off and read what was written.

_The power of the Dark Side is growing. Do not start a war that is already lost._

_Dragon._

_Dragon?_ Hermione wondered silently. _Who is this supposed to be?_

Draco. Draco Malfoy. Of course. Draco meant dragon in Latin. So _he_ was responsible for the murder.

He had to be very skilled to enter the headquarters. She herself, the smartest witch of her generation, could not think of a way of entering the Headquarters with the Dark Mark on one's arm. For a second, she could not help admiring him, before she remembered her hatred for him. She felt her cheeks blush with anger, and then she apparated outside, crushing the sheet in her fist.

She looked at the roofs of the houses as Harry and her walked back home. They had been told to apparate and use floo powder as seldom as possible, because it was feared that the enemy had found a way to control the networks. They walked past a church decorated with gargoyles that looked like guardians in the dark. Silently, trying to concentrate on anything but the image of the seven cadavers, she counted them; one, two, three, four, five. Yet on the other wall of the church, there were only four.

She hunched her shoulders, thinking that everybody did not put so much importance in little logical details, and walked away.

Before turning in the corner, Hermione gazed at the church a last time, furiously wondering if the Death Eaters dared to trouble its peace as well.

She froze.

There were only four gargoyles left.

***

Perched on the walls of the church, silent, motionless, alike to the gargoyles, Draco Malfoy had observed the four Aurors vanish and then come back with malignant pleasure. He had thought how ignorant they were. They did not even imagine how far Voldemort had come. How long his arm had become.

Draco had smiled, pleased with his work. He could not have done better. No one could have done better. At the age of twenty-four, he was already the pet of Voldemort's court and the most successful Death Eater of his time. Lucius Malfoy would be proud of him. But Draco cared only for his own opinion of himself. All the others were rats compared to him.

He had watched how Potter, his wife and the weasels had walked past him without noticing him. Granger's eyes had stayed on him for a while, just enough for him to see her. She was no longer the bushy-haired bookworm he had disdained at school. Although she was quite short, she was acceptably pretty, though she'd never be a great beauty. He could have sworn that she had counted the gargoyles methodically, and that a slight doubt had crossed her mind as she had thought that there was one too much compared to the other walls. She was anything if not cunning and precise; after all, he had to admit it.

But she had not seen him.

Draco had jumped into the shadows like a bat, with his cape extended behind him.


End file.
